Thursday, April 29, 2010

This review (which I admit that depicts the whole album brilliantly) was taken from Dusted Reviews:Originally released in 1969 (as Orgasm), Cromagnon’s first and only full-length is intriguing and utterly confounding, a jumble of rackety percussion, chants, shouts, moans, giggles, whispers, drones, found sounds, bizarre rituals, ethno-freak-outs and one actual song, “Caledonia,” a sort of metal bagpipe reel. Its two main songwriters, Austin Grasmere and Brian Eliot, were, by all accounts, bumping hard against the limits of writing bubblegum pop for money. They heard somehow about the eccentric ESP-Disk label and dropped in to its studios for one day to record this odd, possibly brilliant, but only marginally listenable CD. The album went on through the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s to become a kind of lost Atlantis type of recording, heard about more often than heard, an entry on Stephen Stapleton’s famous list. It was released on CD for the first time in 1993, again in 2000, once more in 2005 and this time, possibly prodded by Ghost’s cover of “Caledonia” two years ago, in 2009. It is always released by the original label, ESP-Disk, and the critical reaction always seems to be the same: How could anything this weird, this prefigurative of industrial out-rock and experimental psyche have possibly been produced in 1969?Certainly, you can listen a long time without hearing much overt reference to the 1960s. There’s a jangly, campfire-ish guitar at the foundation of “Crow of the Black Tree,” though it’s mostly obscured by wild group shrieks and moans, women and men together, though not exactly in unison. Scrubbed and well-behaved 1960s radio-jingle harmonies kick off “Fantasy,” but it doesn’t take long for the cut to dissolve into maniacal cackles and an altered voice careening through Doppler-altered non-linear observations (“I’m bleeding.” “Having died there…”). The tone is both stone-aged and futuristic, sirens cut through with stray radio broadcasts, tribal celebrations framed by electronic squiggles and blasts. “Caledonia,” by a huge margin the most accessible cut on the disc, thunders with drums, whines with bagpipes. Other bands of the era – Pentangle, Fairport Convention, etc. – were working with updated takes on Celtic folk, of course, but none of them were adding this kind of harsh, over-amplified vocals.In fact, most of the bands that Cromagnon recalls – Faust, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, etc. – didn’t exist in 1969. The band’s total disregard for melody, structure, narrative or time signature is shockingly modern not just for 1969, but even now. “Ritual Feast of the Libido” tests the listener with an extended barrage of really unpleasant, unmusical sounds – a whip-beat, and a man howling in either pain or pleasure. “Organic Sundown,” where members of the “Tribe” credited on the album trade whispers, yelps, hisses and intonations of the word “Sleep,” rides a ramshackle percussive rhythm that could be NNCK or Sun City Girls.It is not easy to listen to Cave Rock all the way through, and even if you find it interesting, you may not be able to muster any real affection for these difficult tracks. There’s a palpable fog of self-indulgence hanging over the whole enterprise, a sense of weirdness for weirdness’ sake and lack of discipline or structure. Still, there’s no question that Cromagnon achieved something remarkable in its strange concoction of noise, spoken word, folk, electronics and field recordings. It’s worth remembering that the top four songs of 1969 were the Beatles’ “Get Back,” the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman,” Zager and Evans’ “In the Year 2525,” and the Archies’ “Sugar Sugar.” Nobody was doing anything remotely like this, and certainly not in Connecticut.By Jennifer Kelly

Bizarre, to say the least. There are some tracks, like Ritual Feast of The Libido that I consider inaudible still. It's so inovative it's hard to think they produced this back in 1969.

The track list is the following:1.Caledonia2.Ritual Feast Of The Libido3.Organic Sundown4.Fantasy5.Crow Of The Black Tree6.Genitalia7.Toth, Scribe I8.First World Of Bronze

Monday, April 19, 2010

Psychedelic, awkward, unusual and original. Bohemian? Diamond Black Hearted Boy is that artist emerging from a recent genre, witch house, that finds a way to be different from the other artists. He fuses this "witch house" or gothic chillout or whatever it is with experimental hip hop.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Don't Panic has arrived since last month [March] here in Portugal. I find it really awesome. It keeps people up to date about gigs and other similar events. They update the pack once a week. It also comes with a rad poster. I currently have 3!Check out the portuguese website for Don't Panic.

Released this year on Upset the Rhythm, this is a raw semi-garage rock compilation. Pretty good, although after hearing it too many times seems to start fading away. It's that kind of record you must hear only once in a while [and you recognize it then how good it is].This info about the band is on Upset the Rhythm's official website:

THE STICKS are a stripped down garage party band from Brighton. They bash drums, sway on the bass and claw at guitar - often swapping over instruments between songs live - and yelp with melodic abandon and delight. The Sticks were recently dubbed as 'semi-amateur', this may be true. With cheap, unreliable equipment they manage to tease out a cacophony of crashing drums and raucous guitar melodies.

The key elements of the trio's sound are undoubtedly drawn from the rudimentary ideas found in the more inept efforts of mid-sixties teen bands such as The Chimney Sweeps and The Keggs, as well as their modern day equivalents The Black Lips, The Coachwhips or The Hospitals, say.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

I want it.What is it? A small plastic sample box containing 13 samples of TG's sound, that you can play and detune. Absolutely useless, that's the reason why you'll need it!More information on www.throbbing-gristle.com.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

This is basically a Nurse With Wound track that compiles many of the fan's fav tunes (like a small part of Salt Marie Celeste, near the ending). It is difficult to hear, you have to give it some efforts and probably skip some parts. It includes many genres, like: easy listening, krautrock, spoken word (that to me, sounds like it has some hip hop beats, like if Stapleton is paying a tribute to Snoop Dogg's music, haha), experimental, drone, noise and many more...Try listening a part around 19 minutes: it's jazzy, like an evil jazz you'd expect from Steven Stapleton's mind. It's strange.Then again, it even has a small dose of Salt Marie Celeste (which we've reviewed before around Serotonin Sounds).Here it is for free, Paranoia in Hi-Fi.

Below is the song "The Bottom Feeder" which can be found in Paranoia in Hi-Fi too:

Last night I attended [for FREE] a rad gig: Youthless played at Musicbox, in Lisboa, along with friends like some members from PAUS. Also, spiderman decided to get along and play drums. Nice, isn't it?Fortunately, there were there some kids that kept a good vibe all along their performance. Otherwise, the crowd would drop dead, they seemed like a bunch of old people bored and hanging at a random concert. Youthless kept a good setlist, covered a TV On The Radio Song (Playhouses, to be more specific), tried to crowdsurf, made good efforts to entertain the crowd and gave a rad show.You can check some videos and photos on MyPortugal's (myspace page for Portugal, in case you didn't comprehend) page.Here are some links to the photos: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4, photo 5, photo 6, photo 7, photo 8.

Somewhere in the blogosphere, they said Hocus Tocus sounded similar to Kylie Minogue's Loco-Motion... Forget it. Since when lo-fi indie that's somewhat similar to fellows Wavves, Lovvers and Times New Viking is similar to Kylie? The world still has to go through much stuff for that to succeed.Hocus Tocus are a great emerging band. They are that kind of lo-fi band you seem to have heard before, but still inovative. I advise you to go to their myspace here.

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